Unlawful Government Action
6/13/202611 min
June 12, 2026
Today was the deadline for removing Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, The DOJ asked for a stay, but Judge Christopher Cooper ruled against them, The Kennedy Center board then filed an emergency appeal, alleging that the board would strip all funding unless Trump’s name remains on the building, The Washington National Opera has filed a suit claiming they are owed $17 million of the money Trump says now belongs to the Kennedy Center, Trump has seized funds appropriated for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Federal agencies and the UFC are putting at least $60 million toward the White House cage fight scheduled for Trump’s 80th birthday, Trump brags about the gilding of the horse sculptures by the Lincoln Memorial, The sculptures and Trump's proposed arch echo Victor Orbán’s use of architecture and memorials as symbols, Before day's end, the appeals court denied the motion to stay the removal of Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center and the removal was underway overnight.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsHeather Cox Richardson· Host0:00
[upbeat music] June 12th, 2026. Today was the deadline set by Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for Donald Trump's name to come off the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, more commonly known as the Kennedy Center. In his ruling of May twenty-ninth, Cooper noted that Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name and only Congress can change it. And Congress stipulated that no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the Kennedy Center. As soon as he took office in early twenty-twenty-five, Trump replaced trustees on the Kennedy Center board and appointed himself a trustee as well. Now weighted with loyalists, the board elected Trump chair and then replaced the president of the Kennedy Center. Then the board voted to change the center's bylaws to concentrate their own power. Then in December, the board voted to rename the Kennedy Center the Trump Kennedy Center, and the name went up over the Kennedy Center portico the next day. Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat of Ohio, who as an ex officio member of the center's